An arrangement of the German National Anthem made for the National Orchestra of Ile-de-France, to be uploaded to Nomad player in 2023.

The "Deutschlandlied" (German pronunciation: [ˈdɔʏtʃlantˌliːt] (listen); "Song of Germany"), officially titled "Das Lied der Deutschen" (German: [das ˌliːt dɛːʁ ˈdɔʏtʃn̩]; "The Song of the Germans"), has been the national anthem of Germany either wholly or in part since 1922, except for a seven-year gap following World War II in West Germany. In East Germany, the national anthem was "Auferstanden aus Ruinen" ("Risen from Ruins") between 1949 and 1990.

After World War II and the fall of Nazi Germany, only the third stanza has been used as the national anthem. Its incipit "Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit" ("Unity and Justice and Freedom") is considered the unofficial national motto of Germany, and is inscribed on modern German Army belt buckles and the rims of some German coins.

The music is the hymn "Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser", written in 1797 by the Austrian composer Joseph Haydn as an anthem for the birthday of Francis II, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and later of Austria. In 1841, the German linguist and poet August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben wrote the lyrics of "Das Lied der Deutschen" as a new text for that music, counterposing the national unification of Germany to the eulogy of a monarch: lyrics that were considered revolutionary at the time.

The "Deutschlandlied" was adopted as the national anthem of Germany in 1922, during the Weimar Republic, to which all three stanzas were used. West Germany retained it as its official national anthem in 1952, with only the third stanza sung on official occasions. After German reunification in 1990, in 1991 only the third stanza was reconfirmed as the national anthem. It is discouraged, although not illegal, to perform the first stanza (or to some degree, the second), due to association with the Nazi regime or previous nationalist sentiment.

The "Deutschlandlied" is also well known by the incipit and refrain of the first stanza, "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles" ("Germany, Germany above all"), but this has never been its title. This line originally meant that the most important aim of 19th-century German liberal revolutionaries should be a unified Germany which would overcome loyalties to the local kingdoms, principalities, duchies and palatines (Kleinstaaterei) of then-fragmented Germany. Only later, and especially in Nazi Germany, did these words come to imply German superiority over and domination of other countries.

Melody:

The melody of the "Deutschlandlied", also known as “the Austria tune”, was written by Joseph Haydn in 1797 to provide music to the poem "Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser" ("God save Francis the Emperor") by Lorenz Leopold Haschka. The song was a birthday anthem honouring Francis II (1768–1835), Habsburg emperor, and was intended as a parallel to Great Britain's "God Save the King". Haydn's work is sometimes called the "Emperor's Hymn" (Kaiserhymne). It was the music of the National Anthem of Austria-Hungary until the abolition of the Habsburg Monarchy in 1918. It is often used as the musical basis for the hymn "Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken".

It has been conjectured that Haydn took the first four measures of the melody from a Croatian folk song. This hypothesis has never achieved unanimous agreement; an alternative theory reverses the direction of transmission, positing that Haydn's melody was adapted as a folk tune. For further discussion, see Haydn and folk music.

Haydn later used the hymn as the basis for the second movement (Poco adagio cantabile) of his String Quartet No. 62 in C major, Opus 76 No. 3, often called the "Emperor" or "Kaiser" quartet.

The Holy Roman Empire, stemming from the Middle Ages, was already disintegrating when the French Revolution and the ensuing Napoleonic Wars altered the political map of Central Europe. However, hopes for human rights and republican government after Napoleon's defeat in 1815 were dashed when the Congress of Vienna reinstated many small German principalities. In addition, with the Carlsbad Decrees of 1819, Austrian Chancellor Klemens von Metternich and his secret police enforced censorship, mainly in universities, to keep a watch on the activities of teachers and students, whom he held responsible for the spread of radical liberalist ideas. Since reactionaries among the monarchs were the main adversaries, demands for freedom of the press and other liberal rights were most often uttered in connection with the demand for a united Germany, even though many revolutionaries-to-be held differing opinions over whether a republic or a constitutional monarchy would be the best solution for Germany.

The German Confederation (Deutscher Bund, 1815–1866) was a federation of 35 monarchical states and four republican free cities, with a Federal Assembly in Frankfurt. The federation was essentially a military alliance, but it was also abused by the larger powers to oppress liberal and national movements. Another federation, the German Customs Union (Zollverein) was formed among the majority of the states in 1834. In 1840 Hoffmann wrote a song about the Zollverein, also to Haydn's melody, in which he ironically praised the free trade of German goods which brought Germans and Germany closer.

After the 1848 March Revolution, the German Confederation handed over its authority to the Frankfurt Parliament. For a short period in the late 1840s, Germany was united with the borders described in the anthem, and a democratic constitution was being drafted, and with the black-red-gold flag representing it. However, after 1849, the two largest German monarchies, Prussia and Austria, put an end to this liberal movement towards national unification.